Young Ballerina’s Photos With Dogs Are Wondrous

Snapshots of children and their dogs are always photographic gold, but Russian photographer Andy Seliverstofff took the child-meets-canine relationship to an even more magical place with his stunning photos of a nine-year-old dancer leaping and twirling alongside dancing dogs who look every bit as graceful as she does.

“It’s not an easy task to photograph both children and dogs,” Seliverstoff said in an article published in the UK’s Daily Mail. “And of course for a person who has been photographing dogs for the last 20 years – it’s more difficult to work with kids, especially when they are so young.”

Seliverstoff has been photographing dogs for more than 20 years, the Daily Mail reported, after being inspired by the works of photographers Elena Shumilova and C. Murray, both of whom shoot similar surrealistic photos of children and animals.

Of course, anyone can get a picture of a kid playing with a dog. The magic of Seliverstoff’s photos is how he captures the vibrancy of both dancer and dog, preserving both (sometimes mid-air) perfectly, all hair and fur flying against a serene natural backdrop.

He also has two published books: Little Kids and Their Big Dogs (there’s a part one and two), both of which are filled with photos of angelic-looking children playing with massive (friendly) beasts, including Newfoundlands, Bernese mountain dogs, great danes, bulldogs, mastiffs, cane corsos and German shepherds.